You are probably wondering why this post is titled "Monkey View" and how it is even related to photography. I titled this post "Monkey View" because monkeys see the world upside-down most of the time since they are always hanging upside-down, and this is related to my blog post because I will be talking about the technique from Elsie and Emma's book, A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book, of taking photographs upside-down.
This technique of taking photographs upside-down might have been the hardest one for me because my mind was just not used to looking at photographs upside-down. In their book, Elsie and Emma says, "Turning images upside down forces us to look at them in a whole new way" (158). This is the reason why taking upside-down photographs is so hard for me, because I am forced to look at something in a different way that my brain is not used to. When looking at photographs upside-down we also see the imperfections of the photograph: imbalance (158).
To create an upside-down photograph is very simple: you can either turn your phone/camera upside-down and take the photograph or you can use a photo-editing software to rotate the photo (158). When using your phone to take an upside-down photo make sure your screen is locked. If the screen is not locked then the screen will rotate as you rotate your phone, and the photograph will be like any other photo.
After taking several upside-down photos and reading A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book, I realized there are many pros and cons about this technique. One con to taking photographs upside-down is it ruins a photograph - we thought the photo was perfect (before rotating it) but after rotating the photo and looking at it, it creates an uneasy feeling inside us because our brain is not used to looking at things upside-down, and this feeling makes us believe/think the photo is no longer as perfect as we thought before and we delete the photo. However, a pro to this technique is it creates variety in your photography collection, and it lets us see the imbalance in a photograph (158-159).
What I took away from this technique of taking photographs upside-down is even though this technique is hard to wrap my mind around and to get used to I am not going to stop taking upside-down photos even if I really want to, because they really do create a variety in my work and they stand out against my other photographs.
A question for all you bloggers is what is your favorite angle/perspective to take photos?
Citations:
Chapman, Emma, and
Elsie Larson. A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book. New York: Amphoto,
2013. Print
I totally agree with you when you say that one of the cons of upside down photos is that we get this uneasy feeling in us that makes us think that the photo is no longer perfect, it would definitely ruin the photo for us. But there is a beauty to upside down photos just like with blurry photos! Sometimes we can't accept variety because we have this one-track mindset of what things are supposed to look like and anything other than that would make it seem like it doesn't look right, but really, that's all in the eye of the beholder. Everyone has an idea of what is right and what is wrong, and upside-down photos definitely challenges that concept. To answer your question, I don't really have a specific angle or perspective that I like taking pictures of, with one subject I take lots of photos of it from different angles and perspectives so as to be able to see what it would look like. I believe that changing up the angles and perspectives adds a certain variety and makes it more creative rather than just what it looks like at one angle (a bit boring), so I have no favorites :) Clever idea with the title by the way!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I agree with you when you said how our mind is set on just one way of looking at things that determines what is right (or perfect) and what is not. I think the whole point of the book, "A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book" by Emma and Elsie, is to expose us to all these different and not normal ways of looking at things because it makes our mind open up to all these different views and perspectives so we are not just focus on way to view things. I also agree with when you said that it's all in the eye of the beholder because everyone see things differently and we begin to find beauty in things other people might not find beauty in. I too take photos from many different angles but my favorite is overhead.
ReplyDeleteI like photographs where the focus is not where you would expect it to be. For example: not straight on or the floor is more in focus, etc.
ReplyDeleteThank you Ms. Robison for commenting and reading my blog! I find many people love photographs taken from unexpected angle with the focus also being unexpected just like you, because it tells more of story and the focusing on somewhere unexpected makes the image stand out more against other photos.
Delete